If you own an Emachine, read this now!

the bestec was hooked up to a massive surge protector when the storm occurred. But nothing else in the house got touched by lightning. Also, I do recall that PSU zapping you when you touched it. I dissected that system, pulled everything out... I used the case to build a spare Pentium III computer, hung the fried Imperal board on my bedroom wall as a decoration, and to hold my spare cpu, and I gave that bestec to my friend tim who tested it. Here's the funny thing, once he plugged it up, every capacitor inside blew up, and on the 12v rail, it was putting out 36v!!! 3X too much! The pulled DDR works, the original 1.8 Celeron... idk.

You better replace that "massive surge protector" too. I always replace both the power supply and the motherboard in all "blown" eMachines computers... We can argue wether it's the power supply or the motherboard that fails first till the cows come home. Just replace both. Doing this saves a lot of time and produces a stable computer with a big "E" on the case

This is one good thread. Raybay, you still seeing a lot of motherboard failures, for whatever reason, with the newer Delta/HiPro/Bestec 300W supplies? Is it a particular newer motherboard you have noticed?

Because, like captaincranky, my gut feeling and observation is the 300W is better. The following is an Intel D865GVHZ with, originally, a 300W supply:

My niece has a T3990 that when she turns on, she hears the fan start but then almost instantly it stops. She has a blue power light, but no other power (no monitor, no keyboard). This incident came after a power outage (due to lightning) although her computer is plugged into a surge protector. And, it was about this time last year that we replaced the power supply. Any ideas? Power supply again or motherboard? Anyway of telling without buying new parts to try out? Thanks!

Because, like captaincranky, my gut feeling and observation is the 300W is better. The following is an Intel D865GVHZ with, originally, a 300W supply:

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That's probably an overuse of the term. I myself would dial that down to "less spiteful" (than the 250s).

This expands my own question about "massive surge supressors". If lightning is capable of jumping through air at least a quarter mile or so, then how exactly is a ten dollar surge suppressor going to stop it?

As to the Emachines PSU that had been "zapping my niece", <(I think I read that in this thread, but I'll be damned if I can find it), really, you were given fair warning of impending failure.

As to the suggestion that we could argue ad infinitum which part fails first, yes we could, as well as which came first the chicken or the egg. But this is what I've been saying, that we should analyze each failure on a case by case basis.

This thread started on a slightly histrionic but very prudent note , that you should probably yank the stock PSU out of any Emachine computer and put in a good one as a matter of course, not wait until it becomes a necessity. After all, usually there was a substantial saving at the onset of your ownership. If it costs another 50 bucks to make your experience more pleasant, it's more than well worth it. After all, a PSU with good protection might stand a better chance of surviving a motherboard failure, but that's just me guessing.

Still I cast my vote for an extra hard drive in anything, in spite of the fact the system drives can be up to 500 GB. Bigger drives mean bigger disasters. It's sort of like the argument about jumbo jets, they don't crash that often, but oh boy, when they do.

This thread started on a slightly histrionic but very prudent note , that you should probably yank the stock PSU out of any Emachine computer and put in a good one as a matter of course, not wait until it becomes a necessity.

Click to expand...

At last, someone has seen the reason I started this thread.

It was never intended to be a debate.

I merely wanted to try to save a few e-machine owners some grief and expense.

Plenty of people here on TS quite rightly advise people who buy a case with a psu included to replace it. A standard e-machine psu is not going to be any better that one of those psu's no matter how recently it was made.

rik, you have done everyone a service by starting this topic, and I have never seen a thread with such a high signal to noise ratio. A very good discussion based on everyone's personal experience of emachines desktops. And I see your original statement essentially justified.

That Bestec 250W PSU is a stinker.
Upgrading the 250W PSU in good time really seems to help.

Currently, however, my aired view of the eMachines 300W supplies, is you may as well run them into the ground when upgrading with video cards and other goodies. So far, touchwood, they merely crash the machine or blow without knock-on damage.

We have a cheerful guy at the forum with a 7900GS running on his recent 300W eMachines power supply, albeit with a modest conroe Celeron D352. I honestly don't know whether to laugh or cry. You gotta remember, these guys usually have to borrow the money from Mom to upgrade.

And I also really don't know if eMachines current practise of fitting 20 pin supplies to 24 pin boards is OK, or asking for trouble.